During the colonial era, Christian religious authorities allied with European global expansion used the term “pagan” to indicate their low regard for certain non-Christian religions they encountered in imperial outposts.

Today, those advocating the distinguishing, universal superiority of a Western worldview do so from a secular standpoint. But there are resonances between then and now.

The Economist, for example, circulates an annual global democracy index. It has just published the latest edition, covering 2024, categorizing 167 jurisdictions worldwide. This catalog was compiled by its sister organization, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which appointed itself in 2006 to carry out this annual democracy survey.

Consider what this well-established EIU secular index claims to measure. It says it assesses “the quality of democracy across the world” using 60 indicators grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Jurisdictions are then slipped into one of four descending categories. These are full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes. Jurisdictions are finally scored out of 10. In 2024, Norway, at the top, scored 9.81. Afghanistan, ranked 167th, had a score of 0.25.

This year, Hong Kong ranked in the lowest 50 percent (87th out of 167). The special administrative region is categorized as a “hybrid regime” with a score of 5.09. Since 2015 (score 6.50), the EIU has been marking Hong Kong down, especially after drastic but necessary electoral reforms were introduced after the 2019-20 citywide insurrection violence. Plainly evident is the way the EIU has applied its mode of subjective reflection on local political developments as it has drawn up Hong Kong’s scorecard each year.

This is unsurprising. However, this EIU reflection regime is brazenly selective.

Consider Israel, whose score for 2024 is 7.80, the same as in 2023 — nil reduction. With this score, Israel is ranked in the top 20 percent of jurisdictions evaluated (31st out of 167). It qualifies as a “flawed democracy”.

What on Earth is going on?

Amnesty International, over a decade ago, condemned Israel for its continuous, violent, apartheid-based rule over more than 5 million Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Palestine, an occupation that has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In 2024, the ICJ found there was a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza (in response to the deadly, ferocious attack by Hamas on southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023). The International Criminal Court (ICC) has meanwhile issued war-crimes arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and the former Israeli defense minister.

In February 2024, Human Rights Watch said that Israel continued to engage in acts of “collective punishment that amount to war crimes (that) include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.”

Several hundred thousand Palestinians were killed or maimed in 2024 during this first-ever, daily, livestreamed genocide as Israel has carried out an open campaign of ethnic cleansing and leveling in Gaza, intending to absorb this tormented enclave into greater Israel. Israel has displayed continuous and open contempt for all these judicial findings and damning human rights assessments.

The distinguished former American diplomat Chas Freeman aptly argued that “The hateful things Israel is doing have made it the most hated society on the planet. Netanyahu is seen as the moral equivalent of Adolf Hitler, and Israel is a pariah everywhere outside the West.”

Yet none of this has budged the EIU assessment of Israel in 2024. Israel remains assessed as one of the top 20 percent of democracies worldwide, while Hong Kong has slipped further within the lowest 50 percent of ranked jurisdictions. Believe it or not, this latest EIU assessment tells us that Israel proved to be more than twice as politically saintly as backsliding Hong Kong in 2024.

Meanwhile, note how the EIU’s “five categories” above stress electoral and related process checks. One looks in vain for any explicit performance tests, such as poverty reduction, fundamental infrastructure development, improvements in access to education and medical care, and so on — let alone treatment of subjugated enclaves. The EIU categories are measurably well-crafted to foster priority protection for private property accumulation and retention while enabling review-avoidance of central performance failures.

More grimly, post-Gaza, we now have inescapable confirmation that this pivotal Western assessment regime is morally insolvent.

The author is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.